W’re here with great news! You don’t have to be a product or service expert to get customers.

People are not buying your product, they are buying you. Who are you? What do you represent? What touches your heart so much that you’re willing to get uncomfortable in order to move forward in life? Why are you taking on this business?

Once you have connected with your why, get on the court and get moving! You don’t get customers for your business from sitting in the stands, and most of them don’t care about your product features and benefits. They care about you.

Share the energy within you, put a smile on your face, let the world know who you are, and ask for support… after one really big, crucial step: make it about them.

We have found that the single best way to earn a new customer is to first earn a relationship, or make that relationship stronger. Far and away, the most important exchange you will make with a person is that which impacts the connection… not that which impacts your bottom line.

How people feel about you will absolutely influence their buying decision. When you get right down to it, do you really want to “sell” your friends and family? We think most people would prefer not to “sell” in the classic sense.

We’re in a relationship business. We “traffic” in connections. Those ties are priceless and while you can certainly make more, there’s no need to alienate those you have over a business.

Intent matters. Outcome rules.
It all boils down to two things: your intention and your desired outcome. We set our intention before every interaction by asking ourselves how we’d like things to go. However, the outcome must always be attained.

Our intention may be to ask someone to look at what we’re doing, but that can always be discarded in order to achieve the desired outcome, which is that the relationship is stronger at the end of the interaction than when it began.

That’s it. Otherwise, we’ve made “getting a customer” more important than we’ve made the relationship—and that’s a grand slam of a way to quickly lose relationships. Will they be excited to hear from you next time you call? That’s the only “Yes” that truly matters.

So what do you do? Well, that really depends on what is already duplicating in your company. The last thing we’re here to do is prescribe an all-encompassing philosophy or strategy and say it’s the only way. If there are successful people in your company, find out what they’re doing and do that.

For us, we like simple. Be a great friend. Be a great daughter. Be a great son. Be those before anything else. The rest, generally, falls into place when you’re authentic with people.

The best listener wins.
Ask lots of questions. Really listen to the answers. Listen with your eyes, not just your ears. Listen with your heart, without concern for what you’re going to say next. By listening, how to proceed will become clear.

Good day for them? Probably a good day to ask if you can share something with them. Just got served papers of some sort? Probably a good day to just be a friend. You’ve waited this long for them to become your customer. What’s a few more days?

In our experience, we’ve had success through being authentic. You’ll find that people want to know your story. If you were a good listener, someone will almost certainly want to return the favor. That’s when you have the opportunity to give people a gift. Sharing your story—your real why—not only helps people to understand you and your situation, it also gives them perspective on their own story.

When someone becomes your customer because they feel good about you, you’ve already surmounted much of the challenge of retaining that customer for life. If they chose your product or service because they chose you, they are much more likely to remain a customer, even when offered a comparable product for less money.

This is a word-of-mouth business. So, let the word on the street about you be that you care more, and then you will receive more.

Happy relationship-making!

ELLEN & SCOTT STRUBER are a husband and wife team, living in Washington D.C. with their fur “baby” Wrigley. They had long careers in real estate & interior design and radio & digital media, respectively. They began their entrepreneurial journey through network marketing together and share a passion to inspire and encourage others to go for their dreams.